


Watching

by shealwaysreads (onereader)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Harry Potter, Don’t copy to another site, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Implication of Ginny cheating, Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M, Patient Draco, Post-War, Redeemed Draco Malfoy, Sort Of, Spy Draco Malfoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:53:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21915559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onereader/pseuds/shealwaysreads
Summary: Draco watches. He watches and waits, and he takes the opportunities that present themselves.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 31
Kudos: 288





	Watching

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tackytiger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tackytiger/gifts).



> Another of my Hozier inspired prompt fills! This time the lovely Tacky prompted me with the lyrics 
> 
> "Some like to imagine the dark caress of someone else, I guess any thrill will do" from Someone New
> 
> I took this in an unusual direction - apparently it's easier for me to write implied infidelity than read it - so I hope it reads well!

Draco watched. 

He had developed the habit in early childhood, an inevitable result of being the only offspring of parents who refused to let something so commonplace as a child inhibit their social affairs. He had grown to enjoy the attention bestowed on him at parties and dinners, but he was always ushered away when topics of conversation moved to politics, to tradition, to ‘the old guard’. So he would sit himself in a corner, out of sight and out of mind, and watch the adults as they wove their webs. 

During the war his watchfulness was what kept the wolf from the door. It allowed him to dance through the minefield of spying on the Dark Lord, kept him safe from ending in screams and the splatter of blood on his mother’s robes. After the war, it kept the knife from his back. It kept him on the right side of the law, _just_ , and let him clear the shadows that lingered around him. Crimes witnessed and reported, each a feather on the scales weighed down by his own childhood witlessness. Draco wiped the tarnish from his name with the howling recriminations and snarling tears of every Death Eater he watched get dragged from the court into the waiting arms of Azkaban guards. 

Around him, the world spun on, and he watched. 

He sipped champagne, inferior but tolerable, and cast his eyes across the room. Tonight was the fifth Victory Ball, as the Ministry had so crudely named it. As far from the Hogwarts memorial service as it was possible to get. Bright decorations, cheap alcohol, and not an iota of respect or remembrance of all that was lost in the war. Just a crass excuse to court political power and the support of the wealthy witches and wizards who were always invited. Himself included. 

It was a very different evening, compared to his attendance at the first Victory Ball. When he had arrived at the inaugural event, a ripple of shock and sick fascination had shot through the room. Whispers had curled in his wake, conflicting accounts, regurgitated Prophet think-pieces. He had stalked through the muttering, and the stares, with his head held high and steel in his spine. Alone, until Potter had stepped forward to shake his hand. And then, there was silence. 

Five years on, the whispers still followed him, but the tone had changed. Now it was champagne-fuelled appreciation of the breath of his shoulders, the mystery of his philanthropy, the rumoured lovers. Even as he stood, leaning against the conjured greek-style columns, he heard the talk around him. But he wasn’t interested in the idle chatter of sycophantic social climbers. He was interested in what he _saw_. 

Across the room, Harry Potter stood in the middle of the crowd. Crimson-robed and stoic in the swirl of affected intimacy and painted smiles. He never had learned to hide his feelings. Every one of them flickered across that expressive face for all the world to see, if only they could bear to drag their eyes from his scar. Beside him stood Ginny Weasley, and even Draco could admit the appeal. Slim, strong, porcelain skin, and hair that tumbled like fire over one shoulder. But she, _she_ was the one person in the whole room who wasn’t looking at Potter. Draco followed her line of sight and found Cormac McLaggen peacocking by the bar, eyeballing her right back, an unsubtle leer on his face. 

Draco took another sip, looked back at Potter over the rim of the cheap crystal flute, and caught the instant he realised what was happening. It took barely a moment, a flicker of green eyes from the woman at his side, to the bar, back again, a clenched jaw. Anger. An instinct for awareness, reading the field, recognising a threat. Draco almost smiled, he always had been impressed with Potter’s talent for _seeing_ things, even as it infuriated him. But as he watched, Potter blinked slowly, his jaw softened. Straight shoulders slumped infinitesimally, and worse, a defeated twist sullied that full mouth. And still, beside him Ginny noticed nothing, kept her gaze trained to McLaggen. 

Draco watched. 

But he had never watched passively. Not when he had performed for the approval of his parents, not when he had memorised plans for the Order, not when he had kept abreast of every personal and political manoeuvre in rooms just like this.

And not now.

He had seen Potter attending parties without his previously devoted partner. Seen him with Weasley and Granger, Longbottom and Nott. Seen him looking around rooms, his eyes lingering on long legs, broad shoulders, stubbled jaws. But never anything more. Ginny Weasley broke the tableau, murmured something, left Potter’s side and waded through the crowds to lean against the bar. She passed three waiters with trays of drinks on her way. The expression that flickered across Potter’s face in her wake, shadow-fast, was that of a man cut.

Draco had never understood this sort of thing. When he decided he wanted something, someone, he was committed to keeping it. He didn’t share—never had—and when he was done, bored or dissatisfied, it was clear. He hadn’t hedged his bets since he was sixteen years old. As much as it would shock the world, he didn’t lie either. Not to a lover, and certainly not to himself. 

Perhaps it thrilled her, the thought of dark caresses from another man, a safe entertainment with the knowledge of Potter—loyal, faithful, upright—waiting for her. But as Draco glanced toward the bar, he saw McLaggen’s palm resting low on her back, intimately so. It was no idle fantasy then. 

How _foolish_. 

He pushed away from the column, and moved through the party towards Potter, depositing his half-finished glass on a passing tray as he slipped past ministers and ambassadors, society girls and aged lords, grasping hands and transparent agendas. And then he broke through the tide swirling around Potter, unsurprised by the expectant look on his face; Draco wasn’t the only one that watched. They were close, the press of the party around them narrowed the space, never jostling them, but drawing in to listen. 

Potter held his hand out, his face open, and Draco reached out to take it. Careful to savour the drag of palm against palm, careful to grasp firmly, careful to brush fingertips across the soft skin of Potter’s inner wrist. Careful to cast his eyes deliberately to the bar, and back again, watching for the spark of recognition in green eyes. Careful to hide his savage glee when he saw it.

“Potter, a pleasure.” 

The pulse under his fingers pounded strong and steady, faster as Potter used their clasped hands to pull him closer. An inch. A mile. His voice was a rumble when he replied.

“Draco, I saw you earlier.” He nodded towards the table where Draco had held court over dinner. “I wondered if you were avoiding me, usually we bump into each other earlier at these things.”

He squeezed Potter’s hand gently, before releasing it, stroking his fingers across his palm as he drew back from their overlong clasp. 

“Just waiting for the right moment Potter, as ever.”

Potter’s eyes dilated, his plush mouth parted just so, he swallowed and nodded. Understanding in every line of his body, relief, excitement. He looked just like he used to on the Quidditch pitch, when he had caught sight of the snitch and knew he was going to catch it. Draco smiled, breathing in the spice of Potter’s cologne, the scent of victory. 

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this, leave me a comment letting me know - and come and say hello on [Tumblr!](https://shealwaysreads.tumblr.com/)


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